Food Guide for War Service at Home / Prepared under the direction of the United States Food Administration in co-operation with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Education, with a preface by Herbert Hoover

by United States Food Administration; Katharine Blunt; Florence Powdermaker; Frances Lucy Swain

THE MEAT SUBSTITUTES

Fish. The possible supply of fish is practically unlimited, and much of it is little appreciated by us. We eat on the average only 18 pounds apiece per year, though our meat consumption is 170 pounds. The British and Canadians use much more fish than we do—56 and 29 pounds respectively. The United States Bureau of Fisheries and many State colleges are constantly introducing new varieties, from shark down. We should learn to value the many kinds which are available, fresh, dried, and canned, not merely the few we happen to be used to.

Eggs form a very valuable food not only for protein, but for mineral salts and vitamines as well. It is unfortunate that the price is often high, but it should be realized that expenditure for eggs makes expenditure for meat unnecessary.

Poultry is not now listed as a meat substitute by the Food Administration because the supply has become very limited.

Cheese is one of the best substitutes for meat. It represents most of the food value of a much greater bulk of milk, and its protein, fat, and mineral salts make it an important food. We in America are very slow to appreciate it. We are apt to use it in small quantity for its flavor rather than as a real food. We could well eat more of it, to the advantage both of the palatability and nutritive quality of our diet.

Milk, one of the most easily digested and simplest sources of protein in our diet and the most valuable of our foods, is discussed in Chapter VII.

Nuts are usually thought of as a luxury, but the amount of protein and fat they contain makes them really an important food. Peanuts are usually classed with the nuts and are considered the most valuable nut-crop of the United States. They are growing so fast in importance that the acreage was increased 60 per cent in 1917. They are used for oil and for fodder as well as for human food. Peanut-butter or a bag of peanuts is a good investment, but it should be counted as part of the necessary food, not eaten as an extra. The occasional indigestion following injudicious eating of cheese and nuts is probably often due to forgetting that they are very substantial foods and eating them at the end of an already sufficient meal.

Peas and Beans are taken up with the other vegetables in Chapter VIII.

Why do not the Allies use these substitutes? Mainly because they haven't them. Dairy products are as scarce as meat. All the fish and beans and peas that they can get are being used. But it is not enough. Their small meat ration must be maintained, and their armies as well as ours must have meat. Keep it going over!

CHAPTER V

FATS

To a person who has been in Europe since the war began the question of the importance of fats is no longer debatable. Having practically gone without them, he knows they are important. In Germany it is the lack of fat that is the cause, perhaps, of the most discomfort and makes the German most dissatisfied with his rations. Even when the diet was sufficient, it was not satisfactory if low in fat.

This dependence on fat in the diet is due to several reasons, both physiological and psychological. Some people, the Japanese for example, habitually eat but little. But it is the habit of both Europeans and Americans to use considerable fat both on the table and in cooking. The taste of food is not so pleasing without it. Their recipes almost all use fat in one form or another, so that when little or none is available, a change must be made in most of the methods of cooking. Practically all food must be boiled, and is lacking in the flavor and texture to which we are accustomed. The food, no matter how nutritious it may be, will not taste good.

Fats are very concentrated food, a fact which gives them added value in war-time, making them the most economical food to ship. A pound of any fat gives 2¼ times as much energy as a pound of sugar—the reason for the slogan "Fats Are Fuel for Fighters." Soldiers engaged in the most strenuous physical activities need fuel for all the energy they expend. Bacon, butter, all the forms of fat give them the most energy in the smallest weight of food.

Fats stave off the feeling of hunger longer than other foods because they pass more slowly from the stomach and delay the passage of foods eaten with them. A slice of bread and butter will "satisfy" one for a much longer time than a slice of bread and jelly, even though there is enough jelly to give exactly the same amount of fuel. In the countries in which there is a fat shortage, the appetite does not stay satisfied during the usual period between meals, even when the previous meal contained the customary amount of calories. The feeling of hunger is sometimes almost constant.

Certain fats are valuable for an entirely different reason. Milk fat, either in the milk or as butter, beef fat which is a constituent of oleomargarine, the fat in the yolk of egg, all contain one of the vitamines needed by children in order to grow properly, and by grown people to keep in good health. Lard and the vegetable fats and oils, like nut or vegetable margarine and cottonseed-oil, do not contain this substance, but if there is sufficient milk in the diet, there will be plenty of this "fat-soluble vitamine." In all other respects the fats are alike from a nutritional standpoint. One fat can replace another without harm.

Until the war came there was little need of knowing or bothering as to what kind of fats we ate, or of concerning ourselves with the fact that many more varieties were available than most of us used. Now it does make a decided difference. Our armies and those of the Allies need fat, a great deal of it, and we must ship them the kind most suited to their purposes. We can use what the Allies and the Army do not need.